Ethics Dunces

Just To Be Clear: RayGun’s Apology Isn’t an Apology

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

It isn’t even a non-apology apology.

Littlemore than two weeks ago, both Curmie and I wrote about the ridiculous “RayGun,” aka. Rachel Gunn, who made a travesty of the Olympics breakdancing event (which was arguably a travesty from its inception anyway) and who may have rigged the Oceana competition to represent Australia in order to get a free trip to Paris in exchange for making an ass of herself.

Now, apparently sensing that her metaphorical 15 minutes of infamy was expiring, she’s in the news again for issuing what the ethically-inert news media is terming an “apology.” In an interview with the Australian current affairs show “The Project” the 37-year-old university lecturer said this week that she is “very sorry for the backlash that the [break-dancing] community has experienced” following her performance.

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Ethics Villain: CNN

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

The announcement that the shamelessly biased and wildly incompetent “media expert” Brian Stelter is returning to CNN and that the network is resurrecting “Reliable Sources,” the once legitimate media watchdog show that Howard Kurtz ably and fairly hosted until it was corrupted by Stelter, proves one thing. CNN, after a brief (and only partial) attack of conscience, is fully committed to being a metaphorical whore for the Left again. After all, it has to help save democracy! Here’s Stelter’s announcement:

This revolting development means that Stelter, Chris Cuomo and Don Lemon, CNN’s most flaming propagandists and untrustworthy talking heads who were fired for disgracing even what is now laughingly called broadcast journalism, have found gainful employment, not at Hardee’s where they belong, but again in the field that they sullied by their presence. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Edmond Public Schools (Oklahoma)

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Caleb Horst, a senior at Edmond North High School in Oklahoma, was suddenly ordered by by his school to stop flying an American flag on his pickup even though he had been “flying it for quite a while.” This provoked a flag-flying protest at the school by students who supported Horst (How could the school not see that coming?) as well as objections from parents. Then State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters issued a statement on Twitter/X stating, “No school in Oklahoma should tell students they can’t wave an American flag.”

“We’ve had Americans die for that flag, die for students to have the right to carry the flag, to wave the flag, to be proud of that American flag,” Walters wrote. “My department right now is working on guidelines that we will be issuing to districts to ensure that no student is ever targeted for having an American flag and also that our schools will promote patriotism.” 

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Well, I Guess I Feel a LITTLE Better Now That It’s Clear That a Lot of Israelis Are As Ethically Clueless As So Many Americans…[Expanded]

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Over night, Israel’s largest labor union called for nationwide strike to push for a hostage deal, threatening to shut down “the entire Israeli economy” Tel Aviv’s international airport announced that it would halt departures and arrivals of flights for two hours, and intense protests have broken out in response to Israel’s military recovering the bodies of six hostages killed in Gaza. The protesters say Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not done enough to protect the hostages. To be blunt, the protesters are ethics dunces and morons….much like the American students, Democrats, pundits and the Biden administration trying to pressure Israel into a ruinous cease-fire with Hamas.

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More Thoughts About “The Box”….

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

This is very strange. I wrote about the ethics horror movie “The Box” just this year, yet had no memory of writing the post or seeing the whole movie, despite stating in the post that I had. Then I noticed that the post was dated February 28, the day before I found my wife’s body in our living room. Apparently the shock erased some files.

Moreover, it is creepy that I posted on a movie about a couple that pushes a button on a mysterious box after being told that doing so will kill a stranger but also result in their receiving a million tax-free dollars from an anonymous authority, and shortly thereafter discovered that my own wife had died of unknown causes.

Did somebody push that button?

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Promoting Your Institution By Emphasizing the Most Negative Perspective On Its History: Good Plan, U.Va!

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

I’m not certain what to call this, and solicit your suggestions. Incompetence? Woke virtue signaling? Self-hate? Betrayal? Insanity?

The Jefferson Council, an organization of conservative University of Virginia alumni, has criticized the recent tone of the school’s student-run campus tours that are supposed to convince prospective applicants and their families that U.Va is the place for the graduating high school students to continue their education. The tour organization, the University Guide Service, has been alienating prospective students, the Council says, by immersing the hopeful, bright-eyed young idealists with a “woke version of U.Va history.”

The cheerful tale of the storied university’s origins, the alumni complain, begins by describing how the university’s land was stolen from the Monacan Indian tribe, then goes on to describe how the Rotunda (above) designed by Thomas Jefferson as the center of campus, was constructed by slave labor. They believe that a tour for prospective students should emphasize Jefferson’s positive contributions to the nation, like, oh, authoring the mission statement for this great democratic experiment, his indispensable contribution to securing American independence, his achievements as the third President of the United States, his brilliance and an architect and inventor, those little details. There was nothing unusual about using slave labor when the University of Virginia was established in 1819. Why would an institution emphasize that in a promotional tour?

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“Nah, There’s No Mainstream Media Bias!” Two Glaring Examples…

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

1. The former reliably progressive, Democrat-supporting Rolling Stone reporter Matt Taibbi nicely exposed the Washington Post’s astoundingly flagrant Democratic operative Phillip Bump (EA dossier here) on Taibbi’s substack. (I have been temped to subscribe, but…)

In “Note to Philip Bump: The Washington Post columnist speaks on CNN; a brief reply” he writes:

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Unethical Tweet of the Month: Actor Bradley Whitford

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Just remember, the Ethics Alarms position is to strive as much as possible to remain unbiased regarding a performer’s art regardless of his or her demonstrated political orientation or revealed personal character flaws. I enjoy Bradley Whitford as an actor.

But only an unethical, bullying asshole would write a tweet like that.

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Ugh! Ethics Dunce—AGAIN—: University of Houston Law Professor Renee Knake Jefferson

/ Jack Marshall / 64 Comments

This is an example of why I am disgusted with my field and chosen profession. Just last month I designated Jefferson, a legal ethics professor among other things, as an ethics dunce for her blatantly partisan and biased commentary. This time, it’s personal.

Seeking to find a reliable, trustworthy, accurate source of legal ethics news and developments (since the demise of the excellent legal Ethics Forum, I am reduced to the scattershot, overwhelmingly left-biased commentary on the APRL listserv), I subscribed to the professor’s substack, Legal Ethics Roundup, taking seriously her promise that it would supply a “Monday morning tour of all things related to lawyer and judicial ethics.” But the Legal Ethics Roundup I received this morning, like all its predecessors this month, cheerfully informed me that “For the month of August, the Legal Ethics Roundup is on pause.”

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Bad Celebrity Ethics: David Copperfield’s Penthouse Trick

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Trust me on this: almost all magicians are weird. I strongly suspect that they tend to be on the “neurodivergent” spectrum (that’s the new politically correct term for autistic: you know my views on linguisitic rebranding), but they have other problems as well, including the tendency to slide into more destructive unethical behavior after building their lives around deceiving people for fun.

Alakazam! Here’s David Copperfield to demonstrate how it’s done!

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